Nintendo Adventure - Books 1-6

                                                   RANKINGS 

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1. Double Trouble - Score = 💣💣 1/2 - Two and a Half Bob-ombs  (out of 5)

Sections: 59
Attempts to Beat: 1

After completing a recent stretch of 5 Fighting Fantasy books, I thought it would be a good time to mix in one of the "lighter" gamebook series from the 90's, and thought what better place to start than with one of the several series based upon video games that started popping up during this time. And it only felt right to start with the grand-daddy of this era, Nintendo! These gamebooks are rather small with a low section count (only 59 sections in this initial entry), so these reviews are likely going to be rather short, but then again, I should be able to make my way through the series rather quickly as a result. Starting off with Double Trouble, the edition I have which apparently came free with the purchase of 2 cans of Pringles (which probably also speaks volumes about the length of the gamebook), from author Clyde Bosco, whose work I am totally unfamiliar with, and indeed appears to have only written gamebooks for this series. In this first adventure we get to play as Mario himself, but there likely shouldn't have been any doubt that Mario would kick off the series as the first playable character. 

The story here opens with Mario getting jarred awake while slumbering peacefully in his bed by the sound of an alarm (and I guess this was before the stereotypical Italian accent. No, "Its'a me, Mario!" to be found here). It would appear there is trouble in the Mushroom Kingdom, as Princess Toadstool has sent out a distress call which triggered the alarm. Not being able to find his brother Luigi, Mario decides there is no time to waste, so heads out on his own to the Mushroom Kingdom, going through a pipe in order to get there (a warp pipe I am assuming). Before setting out though, you are given the option of visiting the storeroom first, where you can pick up one of 4 different items: a mushroom, a hammer, an anchor, or a magnifying glass, any of which may help you out later on during the adventure. You are also told about the scoring system for the book, whereby you collect as many coins as you can while you travel along, and then when you have won the adventure, you compare your score to a chart at the back of the book to see how well you did.     

It doesn't take long to discover that this is a puzzle book through-and-through, with no combat system or dice-rolling to be found here. As you initially explore the Mushroom Kingdom trying to figure out just what the problem is, you will encounter puzzles such as search-a-words, mazes, and various other word games, and successfully completing them may help you gather more coins, help you obtain an item, or just give you a hint as to what is coming up next. And yes, that last one is a bit of a problem, as there are several puzzles here where solving them just tells you what you can expect to encounter next before sending you on your way, whether you complete the puzzle or not, which you no doubt would have found out anyway when you turned to the next section, and which thus only contributes to these particular puzzles feeling rather pointless. Other than this caveat, the puzzles themselves actually weren't bad, certainly better than I was expecting them to be, even though you can tell these were aimed at a much younger audience than most gamebook series are.  

Around the halfway point of the adventure, after solving some puzzles that take you past Koopa's trying to trample you or Piranha Plants trying to skewer you, you will arrive at the palace to learn exactly what is going on in the Kingdom and why the Princess sent for you. (And I have to say right here, that even though the Princess is only barely in this, why did the author make her such a bitch?) It would seem that somehow, duplicates of all the creatures in the Kingdom are suddenly appearing all over the place, including one of the King. After determining who the real King is between him and an imposter, you deduce that because the imposter was made of sand, the dopple-gangers must be coming from the Desert Kingdom, and who has his palace there but Mario's sworn enemy, Bowser of course! So it's off to the Desert Kingdom to put a stop to this clone nonsense once and for all. Upon arriving at Bowser's palace, you learn that one of his kids, Iggy (the smart one, and you know he is smart because in the game he wears glasses), is responsible for the duplicates from having created a large machine just for the purpose. This was done at Bowser's behest however, as he plans to have all the clones, of which he controls, vote for him in upcoming elections, thus making him the newly elected King of the Mushroom Kingdom! Other than the fact that I didn't realize kings were elected, this is actually a brilliant plan! There are a lot of villains in more adult-oriented gamebooks that don't have plans nearly as cunning as this. The final confrontation with Iggy and his machine comes down to a choice on what course of action you want to take, and I will say that this might be the first gamebook I can recall where you actually win by running away! (As much as "subverting expectations" as that is, what gamebook player is going to want to run away during the climactic fight?) Anyway, after defeating Bowser and Iggy, you contemplate heading back to the palace, but eventually decide "screw it", and just go home to bed instead. And after how the Princess treated Mario earlier, I can't say that I blame him.    

Our election slogan will be..."A rotten candidate, for a rotten borough."

So all the above is actually fairly decent, but there are a couple of problems here that I should go over. First, the scoring system. In order to get the top ranking for the adventure according to the chart at the back of the book, you need to score 300 or more points. You would think that means you need to collect 300 coins right? I know I did. However, when you turn to this chart, you are told to multiply the number of coins you have collected by TEN, then look up the corresponding number on the chart. So you would thus really only need to get 30 coins to get the highest score. The problem here is that you are awarded 200 coins when you beat the adventure, making the top score a guarantee. (And not just a guarantee, but you are going to CRUSH the top level of the chart). Oops, I think someone may have made a mistake with this system. There is also a loop here where you can find yourself knocked out and sent back to the beginning of the adventure, which you could exploit to keep going back and gather infinite coins. Thanks to the scoring system though, this is hardly necessary. The second problem I had, and this one was really a pain in the ass, was in how the book tells you to proceed to the next section. The adventure is clearly marked with section numbers up to 59, contained inside mushroom logos at the top of each new section. However, each time you need to turn to a new section, you are given the PAGE NUMBER of the book to go to next, not the section number. The page numbers are located at the bottom of each page, but what the hell was the point of numbering the sections then? This took me some getting used to, being far more familiar with being told what section to go to next rather than what page, and even near the end of the book I was often catching myself going to the wrong place. I really hope this is addressed with the next entry. Ending on a positive though, the item system was fairly well handled, with the 4 items you can discover along the way aiding you or allowing you to bypass certain puzzles. The writing here was also fairly cheesy, but that was totally expected considering the subject matter. 

Ranking: The first entry in a series is always tough to rank, even more so when it is a very short adventure such as this. As stated earlier, the puzzles were better than I was expecting, and the story was whimsically "Mario" enough, and heck even Bowser's plan was diabolically clever. The problem for me was there never felt like there was much at stake on the puzzles, with several of them having nothing riding on them at all. The section numbering being rendered useless by how the book is laid out was also a pain, and the scoring system was rather botched. There do appear to be a few different paths through the book and you are unlikely to encounter all the puzzles on one playthrough, which helps with replayability even if the scoring system doesn't, and it does do a good job of capturing the "Nintendo" feel, which will probably be enough of a nostalgia kick for many. Despite its issues, this is a decent start that I hope can be improved upon moving forward. At the very least with the short length of these books, I hope to bang out some reviews rather quickly!

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2. Leaping Lizards - Score = 💣💣💣 - Three Bob-ombs

Sections: 58
Attempts to Beat: 3

Well if it was appropriate that in the first Nintendo book we played as Mario, then I suppose it makes sense that in the second book we would be playing as his brother Luigi. Once again written by Clyde Bosco, this adventure also starts out in the Brooklyn home and workshop of plumbing brothers Mario and Luigi, but unlike the alarm that began that previous adventure, here Luigi decides it would be a good day to take a stroll through the Mushroom Kingdom, so heads down the warp pipe located in their shop that will take him there. And that is pretty much the introduction, as we dive right in at section 1 where we are given a quick puzzle that will determine which of several items (anchor, frog suit, or wings) that we will get to take with us. 

After a short cross-country trip that takes him to the palace, Luigi arrives just in time to find that the dastardly Morton Koopa has just used a magic wand to turn the king into a giant rabbit! Luigi then sets off in hot pursuit of the escaping Morton in an effort to get him to change the king back to his former self. Solving some simple word and maze puzzles along the way as you go, you eventually learn that the wand can only be used "one-way", and cannot change the king back. The only item that can do that is a magic whistle, which is currently held by our old antagonist from book 1, Iggy Koopa. After tracking HIM down, we learn that this whistle is a prize awarded to the winner of the "International Mushroom Games", an Olympic-style contest held every 6 years, with the next iteration just fortuitously for us set to take place in a few weeks. Calling ourselves the "Mushroom Kingdom Royals", we enter a team into the games made up of: Luigi, Mario, Princess Toadstool, Toad (the princess's loyal retainer), Wooster (the king's "chamberlain"), and even the still-in-rabbit-form King himself. 

This "Mushroom Games" sequence is easily the highlight of the book, which up until then had felt rather lacklustre. There are several different events described to you, and you then solve puzzles which will reveal which member of your team would be best suited for each event. Whether you solve the puzzle or not, you will still get to decide between several of your team members as to who should compete in what, but you obviously then have a leg up should you have solved the puzzle. After making your choice, the outcome of the event will then be described, and you will be awarded a medal depending upon how well you did (Tin medals for first place, Wood medals for second, and Chocolate medals for third). Once you have run through the events, you are awarded points for each different type of medal you have won (10 points for a Tin, 5 points for a Wood, and 1 point for a Chocolate), and then add them up to see if you gathered enough points to win the games. Should you earn enough points to have done so, you win the magic whistle and turn the king back into his normal form and thus win the adventure. If you come up short on points however, the Koopa Team wins the games, and you lose the gamebook.   

This adventure seemed to me to be more difficult than the first (although still not hard by any means), and I found myself failing a couple of times just through making a poor choice. The opening sections also conveyed to me even better the feeling of being in a Super Mario game, with its description of bricks floating in the sky and staircases leading up to nowhere. This adventure though felt like it was pulling heavily from the Super Mario Bros 2 game in particular, with your team made up of Luigi, Mario, Toad and the Princess, and also some of the creatures you encounter having come directly from that game, such as the snake enemy Cobrat. The puzzles though felt almost identical to the ones from the first book, and once again several of them don't really have much point to them other than to "let you know what is coming up next", which seems rather a waste of time. The writing also seemed to me to take a small step backwards, feeling even more childish than the first, although the Luigi character did seem more fleshed out here than Mario was in the first book, and I enjoyed his mumblings about how he always played second fiddle to his far more famous brother even though he was putting himself in just as much danger. 

Now, were my main complaints about the first book addressed? Well, one was and one wasn't, which is better than nothing I suppose. The one that was addressed was the scoring system, which has been adjusted here to make the top ranking not a guarantee because now you require 801 or more points to achieve the maximum ranking, combined with the fact that coins felt harder to come by this time. In fact you now would need to find 81 coins to get the top level, and I didn't really come close to finding that amount, so now I am wondering if this maybe hasn't swung back around the other way and now the top rank is impossible? The issue that wasn't addressed was the section-numbering system, because you are still being told what page number to turn to next as opposed to which section number. Did the author ever play a gamebook before writing these? 

Ranking: Hmm, how do I choose between the first two books? Very similar in style but there are parts of each I thought were done better than the other. The style of puzzles was basically the same, and I thought the story and writing in the first book were slightly better, but the gameplay in this book edges out the first thanks to the Mushroom Games sequence, which is the best part from either book. For that reason, and because these are gamebooks after all, I give the edge to Leaping Lizards in the rankings, although there is still quite a bit of room left for improvement. It is going to be tough for such low section-count adventures to score too highly, but perhaps one of these entries will eventually surprise me.

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3. Monster Mix-Up - Score = 💣 1/2 - One and a Half Bob-ombs

Sections: 61
Attempts to Beat: 6

The third book in the series sees us transitioning to a new author in the form of Bill McCay, who is yet another author I am completely unfamiliar with, and who has only ever apparently written gamebooks to be found in this very series. And I gotta say, this initial entry of his does not make a good first impression. We are back to playing as Mario again, and the story opens with Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool, Toad, and the King, visiting the circus in the Mushroom Kingdom one day when the Princess suddenly goes missing, and surprise surprise, it turns out she has been kidnapped! (And I will give you one guess on who is responsible. Hint: His name starts with a "B" and ends with an "owser") So, there is nothing else to do but start searching for her, and the rest of your party sets about doing just that, starting either within the circus itself or in the surrounding countryside.

Pretty soon though it is not just the Princess you need to find, as Luigi and the King also go missing in short order, leaving only Mario and Toad left to try and figure out where they have all been taken (and did they really need to wonder where?). The adventure almost immediately descends into a string of random encounters with strange creatures where you will either need to solve a puzzle, or just straight up make a choice between two courses of action. Probably the only good thing I will say about this book is in the puzzles themselves, which did seem to me to be slightly better than those in the previous books, and they always felt like they somehow related to the situation Mario and Toad found themselves in. They involved such things as comparing two pictures to try and identify how many things are different between them, or tracing a picture without your pencil leaving the page, or finding your way through a maze and then adding up the numbers you came across on the correct path in order to get the answer. There also did not appear to be any of those puzzles where the answer would merely tell you "what was coming up next" which I disliked so much from the prior adventures. However, there did appear to be fewer puzzles overall in this book, due to the many "choose a course of action" sections in lieu of a puzzle. Again, this is about the only good thing I have to say about this gamebook, because now I come to the negatives.....

No way to sugarcoat it. The design of this book sucks. On numerous occasions both Mario and Toad will each suggest a differing course of action, and you must decide on whose advice to follow. There doesn't appear to be a lot of middle ground here, with one of them being right and one of them being wrong, but it seems rather random as to who you should listen to, as both options usually feel quite reasonable. At first I thought the author might be attempting to do something somewhat clever, because for the first half dozen or so of these choices, Toad's advice always seemed to be the right one to take. Maybe this would not have been that clever after all, because once you realized this you would then know exactly what to pick every time, but it didn't matter anyway, as eventually Mario's advice started to occasionally be the correct one to take also. Not only is the randomness of who to listen to a problem, but so are the consequences or choosing incorrectly. Should you choose correctly, you are generally awarded with some coins and continue on your way. However should you choose poorly, then one of two things usually happens. Either you are sent to a failure section where you flat out lose the game outright (and incredibly there is one of these in the very first choice of the book), or you are sent back to an earlier section of the adventure! This latter outcome completely screws up the continuity of the gamebook, and also would allow for any player to just keep looping back on purpose to gather as many coins as they needed to achieve the top score. And while I may have enjoyed the puzzles themselves, the outcomes to the puzzles was another matter, as failing a puzzle also would often lead to either a game over or looping back to an earlier section. Ugh. I found myself looping back so many times that I started to lose the will to finish the adventure, and this is only 61 sections long! 

Edit: I was going to make a comment here about how the first book in the series handled this looping aspect better, as it also contained a section whereby Mario was sent back to the beginning of the gamebook, however it disguised this in the form of "amnesia", after Mario had been hit on the head. But once I thought about it, this example didn't make sense either. Just because you have amnesia doesn't mean you travel back in time!

So basically I had to use trial-and-error to force my way to the end of the adventure. The puzzles are not difficult so not much worry there. The only issue came down to the random choices, and I'm still not sure which outcome was worse, the looping or the instant-failing. Probably the most frustrating choice came right at the end of the adventure, when you confront Bowser in his throne room. Earlier on you learn that Bowser has been using a machine (which looks something like a cooking hand-mixer and is pictured on the cover of the book) to combine various creatures of the Mushroom Kingdom, or "mix-up his monsters" as it were. He turns this machine on when you arrive, planning to use it to combine Mario and Luigi, and Mario starts to feel dizzy. At this point, you are asked if you want to: A) attack Bowser, or B) wait for a better opportunity. Now normally I rarely take the "attack immediately" option in gamebooks, but in this case with Mario already starting to pass out from the machine, it seemed like waiting any longer would be a death sentence, so I attacked. Wrong move! That led to an instant game over, and I then had to go all the way back through everything just so I could pick the other option. Jeesh! Anyway, Bowser is then defeated and the Princess, Luigi, and the King are all freed.

I also need to give mention to the plot, which felt really dumb. Bowser's plan here to go around the Kingdom combining various creatures doesn't seem to have much payoff, and routinely the creature encounters we have with these new monsters make it clear that they are even less effective then their original components, so that Bowser is likely making his army worse off by doing this. The writing here also felt like yet another step down, with terrible jokes and puns popping up here and there, although there were at least a couple of good moments, one involving the Bullet Bills talking to each other as they slowly come towards Mario, and another about how Bowser was disappointed when he tried mixing a Super Goomba with a mini-Goomba and got......a regular sized Goomba. Overall though when it comes to the prose, I think the series is trending in the wrong direction. 

"It's So Bad!". Yes. Yes it is. Both this gamebook and the original Power Glove. If you had it back then, you know what I am talking about.

Ranking: Terribly designed and easily the worst of the first 3 books. The constant backtracking and random choices ruin it, and the non-sensical story doesn't do it any favours either. I was all set to give this a 1 out of 5, but the fact that I found the puzzles a slight step up (even if there are fewer of them) and that I also found the rare moment of humour here and there, meant that I felt forced to bump it up half a point. Still, make no mistake, this is a bad gamebook, but I guess on the bright side, hopefully we can only go up from here. 

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4. Koopa Capers - Score = 💣💣 - Two Bob-ombs 

Sections: 66
Attempts to Beat: 6

Another book in the series and another change from playing as Mario back to playing as Luigi. I wonder if this is how the whole series will go, switching back and forth between the plumbing brothers with each entry. Although based upon the book covers, it looks like we get to play as Link from the Legend of Zelda games later in the series. Yay! This entry is also written by Bill McCay, who wrote the previous book, and the opening is probably the best one yet, as Luigi finds himself abducted by Bowser while working in his plumbing shop in Brooklyn one day, and then is spirited off to Bowser's palace in the Mushroom Kingdom. (Although if it was this easy, why didn't Bowser do this sooner?) A big twist occurs when Bowser reveals that he has kidnapped Luigi because he actually needs his help. It would seem that Bowser's daughter, the awesomely named Wendy O Koopa, has disappeared, and who better than to locate a missing princess than Luigi! (Bowser then goes on to amusingly state that Mario probably would have been the better choice). Not wishing to anger Bowser who could squash him at any moment, Luigi agrees to help in finding Wendy, and is given the choice among 3 options as to where he wants to begin looking, either the castle, the fort, or the magma tunnels. 

Please tell me Wendy O Koopa is named after 80's singer Wendy O Williams? That would be awesome.

The castle option really doesn't amount to much, but the other two choices will see you taking different initial routes through the adventure until they join up again later, although unless you pick the right one, you may have already lost, as I am not sure you can then obtain an item essential to winning. You will probably need to play this one a few times to win anyway though thanks to all the insta-failures, at which point you will have worked out which way to go in the opening, so this isn't that big of an issue. This initial branching also makes the path through the adventure rather short (and it is only 66 sections to begin with after all), which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't rather dull as well. The previous adventures had a nice realization of the Mushroom Kingdom, with its floating blocks and staircases to nowhere, while this is just continual travel through underground areas. Solving puzzles as you go, you eventually work your way to Wendy's hideout, learn that she was not kidnapped but is rebelling against Bowser and her brothers (having stolen all their magic wands), and that Bowser knew all this but was just using Luigi to lead him to her. Bowser then quashes any thoughts of rebellion, Luigi manages to escape, and that's that. After that nice opening, this really wasn't much of a payoff.   

The puzzles here, on the surface of it, are once again better than those found in the first two books in the series, and this would appear to be McCay's strength. However I say on the surface of it, because they feel a bit more rushed here, and I would swear there is either some information missing from some of them, or they are too vaguely explained. Once again though, a lot of failed puzzles or wrong choices result in an instant game over, which in the case of the latter starts to feel randomly unfair, much as it did in the last book. I didn't come across any looping back to sections already visited though, so that was a relief. The gamebook is also more difficult in another way I was not expecting, as there are a couple of items you are going to need to find along your way should you wish to be successful. Don't have the pair of sweaty socks (don't ask) when you make it to the end of the game? Too bad, you lose. I would have found this refreshing as it would have encouraged additional exploring of the earlier sections of the book, however but for the odd exception, there isn't really all that much to experiment with. Either you get a puzzle right or you don't. That said, McCay once again does a really nice job of integrating the puzzles themselves into what Luigi happens to be doing at that moment, and there are a few "jumping" puzzles in here where you need to time the movement of all the creatures in the picture so that Luigi can make it through safely, that really makes you feel like you are playing a Super Mario game. (Even though the rules for them can often be confusingly described).  

The setting here is also rather drab, and for me has been the worst of the first 4 books. Almost the whole adventure takes place underground, which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but the numerous non-descript tunnels and corridors start to become tiresome after awhile, not to mention Luigi's multiple complaints about how hot it is down here. (Ya, it's a "secret volcano lair" dude, no shit it's hot.) This is a shame too because the adventure had a clever intro, with Bowser surreptitiously using you to locate his missing daughter, but then fails to do much with the concept after that. Bowser's children are so clearly terrified of him that the thought of any of them defying him is a large stretch.  And is it just me, or did the artist for this book at times confuse Luigi for Mario? I mean I know they are brothers and look somewhat similar, but in some of the drawings I would swear I was looking at Mario even though I am supposed to be playing as Luigi. Poor Luigi can't catch a break! The author sure tries to give him the spotlight here though, as none of the other hero characters (Mario, Toad, or the Princess) make any sort of appearance, which ultimately backfires I think as Luigi has no one to converse with as he goes along, which only contributed to making it even more dry. 

Ranking: Well, this is a bit of an improvement upon the author's previous entry I can say that much, but I still don't think it matches the first two books in the series. The opening premise of working for Bowser was quite good and was set up very well, it's just too bad from then on it deteriorates into a slog through stuffy underground tunnels and chambers with not all that much of interest going on within them. Strangely, the puzzles are the one thing that I would say are a bit better with these last two books, and I would have thought that would be the most important piece, but the overall experience is being brought down by the rest of the design and the worsening prose. Still, even though I can't say it's good, I did find Koopa Capers better than Monster Mix-Up, so at least the arrow is pointing in the right direction.

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5. Pipe Down! - Score = 💣💣 1/2 - Two and a Half Bob-ombs  

Sections: 62
Attempts to Beat: 3

So are we still going back and forth between playing as Mario and Luigi? Nope! In this entry we get to play as both of them! This book also sees a return to author Clyde Bosco, who wrote the first two books in the series, so it will be interesting to see if he borrows anything from Bill McCay's efforts in books 3 and 4. One strength of the series so far has been with its opening set ups, and that continues here as we get another pretty good one. The story opens with Mario and Luigi attending a birthday party at the palace in the Mushroom Kingdom for Princess Toadstool, who appears to be receiving mainly shoes as birthday presents from all the partygoers. One of those gifts the Princess receives, a pair of red high-topped sneakers, are magical in nature and take off out the window when the Princess puts them on, taking her with them. It then falls to Mario and Luigi to rescue the Princess (not too original there), and determine who is behind the mysterious gift of the sneakers and what their motive could be. The brothers can then begin by either going after the Princess immediately, or by first investigating her "shoe vault" in an attempt to find a possible clue as to what is going on, as the Princess' last words before disappearing were to instruct Mario to go to this vault, but she was taken away by the sneakers before she could give the reason why. 

Mario and Luigi eventually find themselves going down beneath the palace itself, where they follow an eerie melody that can just barely be heard playing from afar. It is this melody that seems to be powering the sneakers, and it is a nice clue as to who is responsible for the taking of the Princess that Super Mario gamers will probably identify. As Mario and Luigi travel deeper, solving various puzzles as they go which comes as no surprise at this point in the series, they soon realize that they have travelled to Pipe World and its seemingly endless maze of similar looking pipes. In keeping with the footwear theme of the adventure, the brothers have the opportunity to acquire various different types of boots (cowboy, wading, and army) as they go along, and this is key as they will need one of these in order to rescue the Princess and win the game. The correct footwear is not all that tough to find however, and you are even given a chance to loop back to an earlier section (oh no, not this again!), should you get to a certain point and not have the correct footwear, provided you picked up a different item earlier (an invincibility Starman). This entry took me 3 attempts, so obviously I did come across some game over sections on my playthroughs due to a bad choice in one case and a failed puzzle attempt in another, but despite that I would still say the book is rather easy.  

Once you get the proper footwear for the endgame, you are ready to confront the villain of the adventure, Ludwig Von Koopa, yet another member of Bowser's evil brood. This got me wondering if perhaps the whole series should have been laid out by having to defeat one of Bowser's kids in each book, before finally taking on the big bad himself. Anyway, Ludwig has been using his musical skills (as you can probably gather from his name) to power the sneakers which have spirited the Princess all the way to his underground lair. As much as I liked the opening premise and the inclusion of this villain, this endgame is very weird, even for this series. Ludwig apparently has the Princess unwillingly playing basketball, as pictured on the cover of the book, while some sort of Piranha Plant orchestra plays his haunting tune. The way the correct footwear you chose earlier comes to the rescue was very odd, and I started to feel like everything going on was strangeness just for strangeness' sake. Aided by a puzzle, you are confronted with a final choice in how to deal with Ludwig, although it should be pretty clear which option you are supposed to pick (although in this series, maybe not!). Once Ludwig is defeated, Mario, Luigi and the Princess make the long trudge back up to the palace to rejoin her birthday celebrations.     

Once again the scoring system here appears to be totally botched, as in this adventure you need to get at least 3601 points in order to achieve the top level score, but the book awards you 400 coins (or 4000 points in other words), just for beating the game. Was this intentional in order to allow players who failed the adventure to still have a reason to check their score against the chart? Possibly, but there really aren't all that many places to gather coins, and failure usually results in Mario and Luigi getting squashed in any case. Instead it feels more like the author just couldn't be bothered to check if this scoring system made any sense. The adventure also felt rather short to me, even for this series, although Bosco's writing is enjoyable enough and helps to make up for it. 

Ranking: Author Clyde Bosco's puzzles do seem to have improved slightly, and I enjoyed the opening mystery of who sent the Princess the magical shoes. I mean, we know it was either Bowser or one of his kids, but I liked the clues given as to which one of his children was responsible. It was also nice to see Ludwig Von Koopa get the spotlight as the villain, with Bowser wisely kept on the sidelines for a change. On the hero side it was good getting to play as both Mario and Luigi, which nicely led to their brotherly banter along the way, it's just a shame the setting here is rather drab with its endless boring pipes. A setting of Pipe World? Ugh. The scoring system is also an afterthought once more, which is wearing thin at this point. Overall I would say this is right in the middle of the pack for the series so far, and I have it ranked 3rd among the 5 books I have played, behind Leaping Lizards and Double Trouble, but ahead of Koopa Capers and Monster Mix-Up. Bosco is clearly winning the author battle for me over McCay (sorry Bill!). 

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6. Doors to Doom - Score = 💣💣💣💣- Four Bob-ombs

Sections: 59
Attempts to Beat: 4

Back over to you Bill McCay as the series returns to the other of the only 2 different authors we have had so far. And for the second book in a row we get to play as both Mario and Luigi, who work together to solve this quest. The story opens in the by-now-familiar Brooklyn plumbing shop of the brothers, where Luigi witnesses Mario sleepwalking through a door in the shop that he can't recall being there before. Not knowing what is going on, Luigi follows Mario through the door, and they both then find themselves in a strange cell-like room, where they are greeted by the mysterious Doctor Von Fungenstein, who appears to be a crazy Goomba scientist bent on taking over the Mushroom Kingdom for himself. In order to do that, Fungenstein has invented the strange "doors" of the adventure, that he can create and which allow him to travel to anywhere at will, not just within the Mushroom Kingdom but to other universes as well. He then plans to use these doors to either send anyone who would oppose him to different universes, or as in the case of Mario and Luigi, trap them inside a stone-walled room. Mario and Luigi find a way to escape the room of course, and then despite not knowing exactly in what world they are in, set out to try and stop Fungenstein.  

This is actually a fairly well done item hunt as far as things go, with Mario and Luigi needing to collect a trio of items (an umbrella, a key, and a garage door opener), with each one allowing them to progress to the next stage of the adventure. These items can be easily missed but fortunately, or unfortunately depending on how you look at it, you can once again "loop back" to already visited areas in order to pick a different option and hopefully find the item in question this time. I had to laugh at one point when the brothers referred to the umbrella as a "bumbershoot", as I wondered why these Brooklyn plumbers would be using British slang, but no, after some quick research it turns out that bumbershoot is apparently an American nickname for umbrella. Huh, you learn something new every day. 

The different worlds Mario and Luigi travel to here are the strength of the book, as we get to visit some different Nintendo locales which really serves to freshen up the adventure. The first one is probably the best, as the brothers find themselves inside the world of Donkey Kong, and need to ascend the construction site from that game, making their way up the steel girders, jumping over barrels and avoiding fireballs along the way, and this was for me the most "video game like" sequence of the series so far. From there we move onto the jungle world of Donkey Kong Jr, where the brothers need to climb up vines to escape the angry younger ape, and then we also get to visit the Super Mario Bros 2 world of Subcon, with its tropical setting of palm trees and sunny skies. This sequence borrows heavily from Super Mario Bros 2, with Mario and Luigi yanking vegetables out of the ground to throw at Shyguys and even includes an encounter with Phanto, the disembodied flying mask from the game. The puzzles for the most part also once again integrate nicely into the adventure, with the best ones being those that depict a "screen" from a video game, showing the movement rules for everything on screen with the player needing to determine how best to make it to the other side. I would have liked to have seen a few more puzzles such as these in the book, as I did come across the odd time where I felt a puzzle would have been a great fit as opposed to just having to make a choice, but you can't have everything I guess.   

This adventure also comes the closest to getting the scoring system right, which was a very welcome sight. For the first time in the series, the book just ditches the whole "collect coins as you go then multiply them by 10 to see how many points you get", and instead just awards you points directly as you make your way through the quest. The top score is set just tantalizingly out of reach, and to be honest, I'm not completely sure it is possible to achieve the top scoring level in the book unless you loop back to collect points more than once, so that is certainly not ideal, but at least it provides a way to do so should you be willing to attempt some out-of-the-box thinking, which likely means having you conclude that there is a puzzle or two you might have to fail on purpose should you wish to achieve the highest level. So while not difficult overall, it did take me a few tries to figure out the best way to gather up all the points needed to obtain the best score. 

The story itself is also quite good as far as these books go, with the mysterious Fungenstein character behind it all, but it also allows us to encounter the famous Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr characters along the way. Bowser himself even makes an appearance, and what Nintendo fan hasn't envisioned a clash between Bowser and Donkey Kong like we get here, however brief it may be. Heck, the adventure even throws in a twist ending, which is definitely not something I was expecting from this series (even though the scorecard at the back of the book shamelessly gives it away if you are paying close enough attention). McCay also wisely repeats what author Clyde Bosco did last book, in having the protagonists of the adventure be both Mario and Luigi as opposed to just one or the other, as this allows for some nice banter between them. Yes, the banter is rather cheesy and filled with bad puns, but what was I expecting at this point, and it kind of fits in this setting anyway. Oh and there is even a "one of us always lies and one of us always tells the truth" riddle in here. Will I ever escape those?

Ranking: So much for Bill McCay trailing Clyde Bosco in this series, because for my money, while not perfect, this is still easily the best entry in the range so far. McCay maintains his strength with the puzzles, even though it did not seem like there was as many of them this time around (but that is ok, as there are still enough of them to get enjoyment out of), but he also has improved on his story telling and general design issues that I had with some of his previous books. In fact, I think this is probably the most "Nintendo-like" adventure yet, and it is especially great fun getting to explore the worlds of Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr as opposed to another quest set solely within the Mushroom Kingdom. McCay's writing seems to have improved as well, and while I am still not a fan of the "looping" back to previous areas, at least there was some point to it this time as far as the scoring system was concerned. Well done Bill!